What the atlas handles
The current app does not require an account or ask for your name, email address, or health information. Saved specimen IDs and completed learning-path IDs are kept locally in your browser on the website and in app storage on your device in the mobile app. The website also keeps up to four recently viewed profile IDs in your browser so you can return to them. PathoAtlas does not upload or sync these local lists across devices. Visiting a profile still requests its page address through Cloudflare, as described below. Atlas searches, lesson answers, in-progress learning steps, and 3D interactions stay in memory and reset when the page or app reloads.
Website delivery
Cloudflare hosts and protects pathoatlas.org. When you visit the website, Cloudflare processes technical request information such as your IP address, browser and device information, requested pages, and security signals to deliver and secure the site. PathoAtlas may see traffic and security summaries through Cloudflare. Cloudflare's handling of this information is described in its privacy policy. Cloudflare may use cookies or similar mechanisms needed for its delivery and security services.
Advertising and cookies
PathoAtlas is preparing to use Google AdSense to help fund free access to the website. The AdSense ownership-verification tag currently published on pathoatlas.org does not itself request or display an ad. When advertising is enabled, Google and its advertising partners may use cookies, local storage, IP addresses, and browser or device information to deliver, limit, measure, and protect ads, and to personalise ads when you have consented and the account settings permit it. Advertising cookies may be associated with Google domains or doubleclick.net. PathoAtlas does not provide the contents of your saved lists, atlas searches, lesson answers, or learning-path progress to Google for ad targeting. Google may receive the address of the page where an ad appears.
Google explains how it uses information from sites that use its services. You can manage personalised advertising in Google's Ads Settings. Depending on your location and applicable requirements, you will be offered consent or privacy choices before or when advertising technology is used. For visitors in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland, PathoAtlas will use a Google-certified consent management platform when serving ads.
Sources and other websites
The atlas includes links to external scientific and public-health sources. Opening one of those links takes you to that site's own service, where its privacy practices apply. Full source pages require an internet connection.
Storage, sharing, and changes
PathoAtlas does not maintain an account-based record of your saved specimens, recently viewed profiles, searches, lesson answers, or learning-path progress in this version. You can remove a saved specimen with its bookmark button. On the website, use “Clear history” in the atlas to remove recently viewed profiles. Clearing this site's browser data or the mobile app's data removes locally saved information. If local storage is unavailable, saved specimens and recent history last only for the current visit. Cloudflare processes technical website traffic as described above. We may update this notice if the app's data practices change; the effective date at the top will show when it was last updated.